Year 12

Some interesting reactions to the test this morning... Remember that in the actual exam you will only have population OR rivers questions, plus fieldwork questions. We will endeavour to have the papers back for you for Monday next week.

We also had a look at the causes of the 2004 flooding in Bangladesh (although the causes are very similar every time there is flooding in Bangladesh), and the impacts and responses. You will need to be able to talk about flooding in countries with different levels of development.

Also a bit disappointing that I have still only had two Boscastle movies...

Test! And infiltration rates....

At last!! Today was the day of the long-awaited test... Not had chance to have a look at them yet, but I have a feeling from your reactions that some of you were more confident than others!

I also gave you back your write-ups of the infiltration practical we did... On the whole, not bad. There were some good, clear graphs, and some well-written aims/hypotheses. All of you need to work on your explanations of your findings - lots of you used your Analysis section to describe your graphs, but very few people actually explained the patterns that their graphs showed. It is also important that investigations are written in the third person, and that key geographical terms are used - your writing will sound far more professional and sophisticated than "I collected the equipment that I needed and then I went and chose a site and stuck the drainpipe into the ground....." and you will sound far more as though you know what you are talking about!!

Test...

Because I am feeling kind and generous, and because we will probably need the whole lesson to do our infiltration investigation, we are not going to have the test tomorrow... But you can expect it at some point in the next few lessons!

You will need to know:

- key hydrological cycle terms (precipitation, evapotranspiration, surface run-off/overland flow, throughflow, groundwater flow, water table, baseflow, interception, stemflow, river discharge)
- concept of a system (closed and open... inputs, outputs, stores and flows)
- factors affecting the key processes we've talked about (eg infiltration rates varying according to amount of vegetation, etc.)
- water balance equation
- actual and potential evapotranspiration - differences between them and factors that affect them
- soil moisture budgets

Remember to keep your glossary of key words going as we go along... And don't forget the ideas for learning key words and ideas that we talked about on Tuesday - mind maps, post-its, etc.